


The Definition of Forever

by nuka_cherries



Series: The Trilogy of Fix Its [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: -puts on gauntlet- Fine...I'll fix it MYSELF, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, One Shot, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Stucky Fix It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuka_cherries/pseuds/nuka_cherries
Summary: The fate of the universe rested on their shoulders, and Steve felt like Atlas in trying to carry the weight again.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Trilogy of Fix Its [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121369
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	The Definition of Forever

**Author's Note:**

> I began to write this on May 21, 2019, and now here I am on January 22, 2021. This is my third Stucky fix it one shot, and ironically, the most CANON acknowledging one yet.
> 
> All I do is charge my phone, be bisexual, write introspective Stucky Fix It one shots, eat hot chip and CRY!

Steve saw the stars five years ago when they hunted down Thanos. Steve saw another planetary system. He saw the stars, determined to bring Bucky and the universe home. Determined to find answers and bring everyone back.

Life was definitive. They lost. Thanos won. The end. 

But then it wasn’t. 

The end did not have to be the end. It was a starting point to do something new. To try something new and take a leap of faith into oblivion. 

When he was a teenager, no man could dream to walk on the moon. But now, time travel was real. Everything out of a science fiction movie became real. 

A selfish part of Steve wondered if he could go back in time and take out Thanos by the head instead, but he soon learned that it wasn’t possible. There was arguing. Bickering. A lot of bickering. Who did what, who went where, who said when, when the timeline was in order, when it wasn't. 

Five years. Five goddamn painful years.

And he was in the stars again, in a suit and colors that were not his own.

But he wasn’t Captain America anymore.

Nomad was the callsign that Tony refused to call him. Then again, Tony did not call Steve a friend.

But they could cooperate together. 

And Steve could work with that. 

Frankly, the fact that Tony still even _talked_ to him was a surprise too, but he could work with it. They had to.

Though Steve called himself Nomad, he could stand being called Cap. He could be Captain America and play the part again. It would be selfish if he were to not do his part.

The fate of the universe rested on their shoulders, and Steve felt a little bit like Atlas in trying to carry the weight again.

* * *

Once again, he faced off with the Red Skull and he called him on his bluff. Nothing was stopping Steve from getting the stone, especially not the Red Skull.

He finally killed him with a gunshot to the head. 

It wasn’t the first life Steve had taken, but it was the first time he felt satisfied by the loss of the man who caused so much destruction. Was he even a man? He was a monster. Red Skull was the Nazi scum of Earth that ruined so much, caused so much, killed thousands of people. 

Steve took the soul stone from his hands and watched him until the life in his eyes went out. 

For a few moments, the misery ended. A loose end of his not-so distant past was yanked into the pits of hell, then kicked by Steve off to the cliff. He saw the cosmos that day and held an infinity stone in his bare hand. He killed the rat responsible for so much destruction. 

And Steve never felt so free.

* * *

The fight was finally here.

And the Thanos from another time was just as cryptic and just as deadly. But Steve had enough of him.

If it was just him against an army, so be it.

Then he heard Sam’s voice. 

“On your left.”

Natasha started laughing on the channel. A genuine laugh of life, of relief, of knowing victory was in their hands.

Everyone stepped through the portals. _Everyone._ Chants, cheers, taunts. Laughter. It was a moment that Earth stood still for the biggest battle yet.

When the hammer flew to Steve’s hand, it felt so right. 

It was instinct that led him to raise his hand, to summon a power that was of the gods, of the cosmos, of the stars and beyond. Where the instinct came from, he did not know. Maybe it was something from the old serum that led him to hold the hammer. Maybe it was something about being worthy. Maybe it was something ageless as the the stars.

All doubt was washed away that moment, as every drop of his own spilled blood was a drop closer to victory. This was no battle. This was a war. It felt different than it had been in Manhattan, than in Sokovia. 

This Thanos from another time was just as cryptic and looming, but he would not win tonight.

Steve would not die tonight. 

And with his hammer in hand and his shield on the other, Steve led the army of hundreds against Thanos' force of thousands.

* * *

The Avengers were winning. 

“Steve!” Bucky called out, their paths finally crossing again.

Without pause, Steve strode to where Bucky was and he swooped him into his arms, shield remnant in one hand. He didn’t think about it much, he didn’t have the moment to do so when everyone showed up to fight. 

And he kissed him. 

Bucky kissed him back and then he stopped. He touched at Steve's chin and gaped.

“Wait, what happened to your _beard_?!” Bucky exclaimed.

Steve almost wanted to laugh. And he did.

Steve started laughing, as did Sam in his ear and Natasha on his left of the newly cleared clearing. 

“You went to another dimension and that’s all you have to say to me?!” he asked.

“I--It’s a valid question!”

“Steve, there’s another wave coming,” Thor warned, though he was smiling. His axe was at the ready.

“Right,” Steve let go of Bucky. “We need to get into position.”

“You got it, sweetheart,” Then Bucky grinned with a glint that was over a century old, filled with determination and promise. “Let’s send ‘em to hell.”

They returned to the battlefield, like the past five years never passed and there was another threat for humanity to avenge.

* * *

The Avengers were losing. 

Thanos had the upper hand. He had the gauntlet on his hand and it felt like a cruel deja vu from five years into the past. 

“I am...inevitable,” he had said, like nailing the final nails into the coffin of certain death.

But the gauntlet lacked gems.

“And I,” Wanda hissed and her eyes flared red. _“I am your end.”_

With the gauntlet adjusted to her hand, Wanda raised her hand high and snapped her fingers.

The blast felt like an explosion with no flames, a shockwave felt throughout the battlefield and into the universe. The force was _strong._ Yet, Steve shielded Bucky with what was left of his shield and himself.

Then the shockwave died down. 

And with Bucky in his arms and with Steve's own eyes, he saw Thanos and his army turn to dust.

Wanda was angry, with a power unlike any other glinted off her in waves. She slowly lowered herself to the ground and let the burnt gauntlet hit the ground.

Her eyes faded from red and she fell into Natasha’s arms. She was smiling again. Laughing. 

Shouts of victory instead of outcries rang out. It was a win. They won.

"Would you look at that?" Bucky asked. "We won."

"Yeah," Steve exhaled. "We did."

* * *

A few days after the battle, he found himself outside of the facility in New York again. There was a bonfire. There was a party. There were many parties. But the festivities were only getting started around the world as some order was restored. The Avengers were Earth's mightiest heroes now, officially. All was forgiven when it came to the not so recent past. People started anew. The roaring twenty-twenties returned in full swing and celebration. 

Steve looked up to the same stars he travelled through and down at the bonfire a few meters away from the lake. There was the fleeting thought about fireworks being the closest thing that humanity saw as seeing stars being born. But it wasn't like that. Kind of. 

He was almost a hundred years old and he got to see the stars.

He sees the stars now, shimmering above the lake. 

In the present, Steve heard the door behind him open, then close. He looked back to see Bucky.

He had to be dreaming. 

Bucky only smiled like this in his dreams, after the battle in Wakanda. But every time, he would turn to dust. To ash. To nothingness until Steve woke up and had the cruel reminder that this was real.

Steve was dreaming. He had to be--it was too good to be real.

“You know that I can hear you overthinking,” Bucky pointed idly to the manor behind him. “Like, all the way inside.” 

Steve had missed him so much. 

“Sorry,” he apologized, though he didn’t mean it. 

Bucky joined him on the bench. He reached up to Steve and tucked a few strands behind his ear.

“S’okay, Stevie. You got nothing to apologize for.” 

“I can’t turn it down,” Steve admitted. “It’s all--”

“Happening.

“Yeah, I know. It’s...” Bucky stayed quiet, then he spoke. “A lot.”

And Steve had to laugh. Again. But it was without humor, like he got the air knocked out of him. 

“Yeah,” he summed it up so perfectly in two words. “A lot.”

“Look at you,” Bucky ran his thumb across Steve’s cheek, the gesture so soft, so intimate, so familiar. It felt like he was dreaming. He was dreaming, after five long years of an endless nightmare. 

“Life really kicked you in the ass, huh?”

Life kicked him in the ass. _Him._ Not Bucky, who was tortured and brainwashed and controlled for seventy years and then framed for _terrorism_. Not Bucky, who only started to live again and recover a year before the snap, before he had five years stolen from him and half the universe as a mad tyrant sent him to another dimension. 

Not Bucky. 

But _him._

And Steve had to admit it. That Bucky was right. That he did lose something; time. Family. Friends. Allies. Home. Peace of mind. _Him._ Steve spent so long counseling the ones who lost someone in the decimation that he forgot himself. 

He should be celebrating with everyone else. He should. But he wanted to grieve.

He lost time. Everyone did. 

“Five long years of it,” Steve finally said. Five long years that felt like an eternity to him.

Ha. 

Like infinity.

He felt Bucky’s eyes on him. He felt how Bucky’s hand was warmer than he remembered as the thumb grazed his skin to wipe at a tear. Maybe he was dreaming again.

“I don’t know what comes next,” Steve admitted. “Everything’s changed.”

Bucky leaned closer and with the vibranium arm, he reached to tilt Steve’s chin up.

“Hey,” he said. “Never again will I be taken from your side again. Never again will I leave you.”

The plea was so honest. So desperately spoken. 

Never. 

That was definitive. Wasn’t it?

“Never is definitive.”

“So is forever,” Bucky smiled. “And all we have is time.”

And Steve could finally admit to finding definition.

The failure of Thor not going for Thanos’ head was the original sin for the new decimated world. 

A thousand possibilities ran through Steve’s mind after the first failure, after all the possibilities and maybe this, maybe that. Overthinking kept him up, and the familiar rhythm of insomnia welcomed him each night. Until enough was enough and Scott Lang showed up to change their lives again.

No words could describe the uncertainty of knowing so much. 

But...He could define forever now. He could make his own defintion. Forever now, he could be at peace. Forever now, he could live his life with family again. Never. Always forever. Forever.

So Steve held Bucky close and began to live for the rest of forever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Another one shot for the books!
> 
> If y'all wanna check out my other fics, I got plenty to share! I write for Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect.


End file.
